Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Alternate Titles:• A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Hanzo steel shall not be infringed.
• Testifying Before the Senate Judiciary Committee with Orrin-chan ^_^
• Nomination to Highest 36 Chambers Subject to Proof She Can Interpret Ancient Scrolls of Shaolin Temple

A friend of mine was talking about this on his Facebook page, and I refused to believe it was real until I read a transcript and saw a clip. This is from Sonya Sotomayor's senate confirmation hearings for her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court:

HATCH: As a result of this very permissive legal standard — and it is permissive — doesn't your decision in Maloney mean that virtually any state or local weapons ban would be permissible?

SOTOMAYOR: Sir, in Maloney, we were talking about nunchuck sticks.

HATCH: I understand.

SOTOMAYOR: Those are martial arts sticks.

HATCH: Two sticks bound together by rawhide or some sort of a—

SOTOMAYOR: Exactly. And — and when the sticks are swung, which is what you do with them, if there's anybody near you, you're going to be seriously injured, because that swinging mechanism can break arms, it can bust someone's skull.

HATCH: Sure.

By all accounts, Sotomayor's confirmation is a done deal. At this point, there's no way she's not joining the court without being found with a dead hooker, a live little girl or with dozens of photos of her wearing a hairnet and driving an El Camino full of illegals across the border while the half-dozen devotional Satan figurines on her dashboard shoot red lasers out of their eyes. The only remaining purpose of the hearings is to gin up quotes for future election-year talking points about activist judges who hate fetuses, freedom and firearms and love moral relativism and minorities. Hence Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) and his job as Senate Judiciary chairman, to be as much of an acceptable prick to Sotomayor as possible and get in the requisite applause lines for red-state constituencies without coming off like an overt racist who hates all hispanics except:

Comparatively, the Orrin Hatch line of questioning is almost lovable. (Maybe he's hoping the GOP can sweep all the Ninja Turtles and Anthropomorphic Talking Rat constituencies in 2010.) He's trying to waste time, digging fruitlessly to sabotage a nominee who he knows is going to steamroll the process anyway. It's enough to almost make a citizen lament the time-wasting of congress and its petty, venial gestures, if it weren't for the fact that members of it were just days ago debating the worth of honoring a guy who was accused of touching children and who discovered how to slide his feet backwards at some point in the 80s.

Personally, I think the process is just broken and stupid enough that it should keep going. My ultimate goal is to witness this exchange:

HATCH: As a result of this very permissive legal standard — and it is permissive — doesn't your decision in Guile v. Ryu mean that virtually any Essence Weapons ban would be permissible?

SOTOMAYOR: Sir, in Ryu, we were talking about the Hadōken, which is a maneuver from the Shotokan fighting school.

HATCH: I understand.

SOTOMAYOR: Those are firebombs created by martial artists.

HATCH: A propulsion of, uh, a propulsion of fire created by spiritual communion with the martial art, whereby, uh, whereby the artist harnesses his—

SOTOMAYOR: Chi. Exactly. And — and when those fireballs are propelled to attack someone or defend yourself, which is what you do with them, if there's anybody in front of you, they're doing to suffer damage. Because you incur damage even if you're in a block stance. Which means that your game won't be—